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There are also situations in which
we want to invert some bits; that is, change a one value to a
zero, or a zero value to a one. To do this, we use the XOR function.
While this is not as intuitive as the way masking works with OR
and AND, if you refer to the XOR truth table (Table 13)
you will see that if you XOR with a one, the input value is flipped,
while XORing with a zero causes the input to be unchanged. To
see how this works, let's take the same input example and invert the
middle six bits, as shown in Table 16.

Table 16: Inverting Bits Using an XOR Bit Mask

Input

1

0

1

0

0

1

0

1

1

0

1

0

Mask

0

0

0

1

1

1

1

1

1

0

0

0

Result of XOR Operation

1

0

1

1

1

0

1

0

0

0

1

0

In the world of networking,
bit masking is most commonly used for the manipulation of addresses.
In particular, masking is perhaps best known for its use in differentiating
between the host and subnetwork (subnet) portions of Internet Protocol
(IP) addresses, a process called subnet
masking and described in the
section on IP subnet addressing.

Note: Masks are often expressed in either hexadecimal or decimal notation for simplicity of expression, as shown in the IP subnetting summary tables. However, the masks are always applied in binary, as described above. You should convert the mask to binary if you want to see exactly how the masking operation is going to work.

Key Concept: The properties of the OR and AND boolean functions make them useful when certain bits of a data item need to be set (changed to 1) or cleared (changed to 0), a process called bit masking. To set bits to one, a mask is created and used in a bit-by-bit OR with the input; where the mask has a value of 1, the bit is forced to a 1, while each 0 bit leaves the corresponding original bit unchanged. Similarly, a mask used with AND clears certain bits; each 1 bit in the mask leaves the original bit alone, while each 0 forces the output to 0. Finally, XOR can be used to invert selected bits using a mask.

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